Labor MPs will target electorates to make most of budget fury

Labor MPs have been told to step up their profiles in their electorates to capitalise on ''a tide of anger'' over the first Abbott-Hockey budget, during a special phone-based meeting of the federal caucus.

They were told to set up mobile offices in as many places as possible to field voter concerns and communicate the Labor alternative, with regional centres such as Geelong and Tweed Heads specifically mentioned.

The regional push reflects a view in Labor that the Nationals in particular have left themselves exposed by allowing a hard-cutting budget formula to prevail with dire consequences for low- and average-income earners outside the nation's capital cities.

The giant hook-up on Wednesday was run by Labor leader Bill Shorten and also heard from the party's national secretary, George Wright, who revealed the findings of focus group testing of key budget initiatives.

Mr Wright told the MPs that the biggest concerns among voters were the upfront GP payment, and the plan to carve up to $80 billion form projected health and education spending over the decade.

Also high on the list of voter grievances was the delayed pension age and the tightening of Family Tax Benefits.

''The GP tax is dynamite,'' Mr Wright said, according to a source. Disapproval was ''extremely strong'' across the full range of cuts.

Mr Shorten said the Coalition had underestimated Labor's ability to campaign and organise. ''We will fight them now and we will keep fighting them,'' he said.

''There are more nasties coming out every day … we need to maximise our effort now.''

Labor's shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, told the National Press Club on Wednesday his own electorate of McMahon in Sydney's west would be the worst hit by the budget. ''Of the top 10 electorates impacted, nine are represented by the Labor Party,'' he said. Measures such as tighter access to family benefits, regular increases in the petrol excise and co-payments for visits to the doctor would all hit low-income earners the hardest. Calculations by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling showed families in the bottom one-fifth of incomes would see their take-home incomes fall by about 5 per cent while those in the top fifth would see it slip just 0.3 per cent.

''Budgets are about priorities,'' Mr Bowen said. ''This government's values tell them it is OK to introduce a scheme which sends cheques for $50,000 to millionaires who have a baby while cutting the pension, freezing younger people out of Newstart and reducing family payments.''

Labor would oppose the indexation of petrol excise because it would hit poor families harder than well-off ones.

''It is a regressive measure. Many of us in this room would have fuel cards. We have employers who pay petrol. Even if we don't, it's a smaller proportion of our income than it is for families in my electorate trying to get to and from work, trying to drop the kids at Saturday morning footy training, et cetera.''

''This proposal and it's not one we will support. I note the Greens have indicated support or conditional support but our position is to oppose it.''

He rejected government claims that the measures Labor planned to block amounted to $40 billion. Taking into account Labor's support for the continuation of the minerals resource rent tax and carbon tax and its opposition to the Coalition's paid parental leave scheme produced ''a different equation''.

Labor would consider amending the immigration program to include an entrepreneur's visa and changing the tax laws to remove barriers to crowd sourced funding of technology startups.

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